Signs, labels, tags and similar identifying indicia of the type which are customarily applied to a surface with pressure sensitive adhesive are being used in increasing numbers by government, industry and private enterprise. Every year, or more frequently, state and local governments issue millions of pressure sensitive labels and tags which are required to be applied to automobiles, boats and other vehicles to evidence payment of registration fees, taxes and the like. Other pressure sensitive signs or labels are increasingly being used to impart a wide variety of information from the name of the manufacturer of a product, to instructions for product use, or to the fact that a motor vehicle or other item has been inspected or approved and to whatever message the buyer desires to put on his or her car bumper. Moreover, the widespread use of such pressure sensitive labels, signs and tags, primarily because of their low cost, is expected to increase to an even greater extent.
Despite the advent of the Uniform Price Code, the use of pressure sensitive price labels by retail stores has increased. Billions of such labels are manufactured and applied to consumer goods annually. The application of pressure sensitive labels to the goods is generally accomplished with ease, although removal from the carrier or backing paper can pose problems. However, when the time comes to remove the price label, removal is generally only accomplished with great difficulty. In the case of price labels in particular, the difficulty of removal is a characteristic purposely chosen to prevent unscrupulous consumers from removing the original price label and replacing it with one containing a lower price. To this end, a very strong pressure sensitive adhesive is used on such labels. However, the vast majority of consumers are not in this category, and are, unfortunately, confronted with the unpleasant task of removing tenacious and stubborn price labels from the goods they have purchased.
Not only is removal of most currently available price labels difficult, but the objects on which they have been placed are also very likely to be damaged during the removal process. If the consumer's fingernails are not long enough to scrape the label off, some type of scraper or the like will be used to assist in removing the stubborn label, usually at considerable risk of harm to the object's surface. Alternatively, the consumer may choose to use a solvent to facilitate label removal which, again, poses a significant risk of damaging the object bearing the label. The consumer, therefore, is faced with two equally unappealing courses of action: attempting label removal with its attendant aggravation and frustration and the likelihood of damage to the goods he has purchased or leaving the label in place on the goods. Neither choice, however, is an acceptable one if the item purchased was intended to be given as a gift. Social convention has never and still does not sanction the giving of gifts which are either damaged or reveal the price paid for the time. Moreover, a consumer who has experienced the annoyance which accompanies product damage caused by removal of a pressure sensitive price label is likely to shop at retail outlets which employ other methods of pricing.
Consequently, there is a need for a label for application to consumer goods which meets the needs of both the merchant, who wants a price label which cannot be readily removed and exchanged for one containing a lower price prior to purchase, and the consumer, who wants a price label which can be easily removed without damage after the item has been purchased. Moreover, such a label should be easily and inexpensively manufactured and applied to consumer goods using conventional equipment.
One type of price label currently available is dispensed from a hand-held printer directly onto the goods to be marked. Such labels are often scored in a criss-cross pattern so that, when removal is attempted, the label will tear into several pieces. A label of this type clearly deters label exchanging. It cannot be reapplied to another item removal of this label in one piece is virtually impossible. Although a label of this type may discourage would-be label switchers from defrauding retail stores, it still presents removal problems to the consumer and, consequently, does not avoid the product damage discussed above.
The pressure sensitive adhesive signs, labels and tags disclosed in the prior art suitable for use in pricing consumer goods are clearly not intended to be easily removed and do not include tamper indicating means. U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,636,297 to Johnson and 3,706,626 to Smith et al. illustrate a type of pressure sensitive label commonly used as price label on consumer goods. The label disclosed in the Smith et al. patent has pressure sensitive adhesive applied to the entire back of the label, while the label disclosed in the Johnson patent has a strip of pressure sensitive adhesive applied to most of the label surface. Neither label, however, is easily removed from the surface to which it has been applied without the likelihood of damaging that surface. Moreover, to the extent that removal of the label disclosed in the Johnson patent is facilitated by the absence of adhesive from the label edges, Johnson does not provide tamper-indicating structure which would discourage label removal by dishonest parties.
There are disclosed in the prior art labels which do include means to facilitate their removal from the surface to which they have been applied. The label shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,421,239 to Smith is exemplary of such labels. While structures such as the tab shown in the Smith patent may assist in label removal, the excess material required to produce such tabs results in inefficiencies, wasted material and, hence, increased cost in the production of labels including them. Moreover, these tabs or projections are susceptible of tearing and render the labels difficult to produce or apply on conventional label making and applying equipment.
A sticker contemplated for temporary application is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,055,249 to Kojima. This sticker, however, is formed of a complex, multi-layer arrangement of sticking sheets specially cut to form lugs or tabs which project beyond the body of the sticker to provide a structure which can be grasped with the fingers to remove the sticker. Additionally, a series of several manufacturing steps is required to form this multilayer arrangement. There is, moreover, no suggestion that the potentially costly sticker unit described in this reference could include tamper indicating structure which would make it difficult to remove or reapply. Further, the label structure described in this reference is not readily adaptable for production on and application by conventional equipment.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,557,505 to Schaeffer et al. discloses a tamper indicating tape product. However, this product requires that stress such as would accompany the opening of a container be applied to it to produce a color change which causes a first message to be changed to a second message. Not only is there no suggestion that this tape product could be used as a price label, but production on the multi-layer laminate required to communicate that tampering had occurred would be costly and not readily adapted to conventional label making equipment.
The prior art, therefore, fails to disclose a tamper indicating label which may be removed from a surface without damaging the surface, but which discourages unauthorized label removal and reapplication, and which may be produced inexpensively on conventional label making equipment and applied readily with conventional label application equipment.